And while the footage only gave away fleeting glimpses of what follows half a year on from the first, it promises to maintain the high standards of the first season.

What is revealed is that Brody (Damian Lewis) is now in the CIA and Carrie (Claire Danes) has recovered from her shock therapy and is back at home living a peaceful life – teaching.

However, it’s not long before both are back in action. Another slice of footage showed Carrie running through Beirut and apparently still beating herself up over her failure to prove that Brody had been turned.

The clip showed her saying: “Being wrong about Brody really f**ked me up, I’ve never been so sure and so wrong.”

Brody, meanwhile, continues to declare in the footage that “I am not a terrorist”, despite having been seen failing to detonate the bomb that was strapped to his body in the first season finale and opting to infiltrate the US government at the highest levels as an alternative.

As for Mandy Patinkin’s Saul, he may or may not be speaking the truth when he calls Carrie back into service… his motives also remaining unclear in the early stages of the season.

Following the footage, Danes and Lewis attended an enthusiastic panel, while Gordon ruled out any possibility of writing Danes’ real-life pregnancy into the show.

Homeland‘s second season is due to return on US TV on September 30. It will follow on Chanel 4 in the UK later this year.